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Sunday, November 28, 2010

A Shiny New Look for Kalyn's Kitchen (and Much Thanks to Jennette and Rand!)

Surprise, it's a brand new look!
For months now behind-the-scenes tinkering has been going on around here as I worked with Jennette from Make My Blog Pretty and my brother Rand to create a new look for Kalyn's Kitchen. Jennette did the website design and Rand did the graphics to create an updated blog I hope you're going to love as much as I do. Later tonight the switcheroo will take place, as I'm biting my fingernails and probably refreshing the page multiple times a minute.

Repeat after me: Change is good
There are three reasons I decided to re-design my blog (despite all the people who told me "Don't change it" every time I brought it up!)
--First, I wanted bigger photos. It seemed like all the cool blogs had photos bigger than mine, but I couldn't go any bigger with the template I had.
--Second, I was still using a classic Blogger template, and there were new features I couldn't add without upgrading. Every time I looked at other blogs, I got a serious case of blog envy.
--Third, quite honestly I was starting to feel like the whole blog was looking a bit 2006, which was when the design was last updated!

Hmm, this place seems familiar
During the transition I focused on keeping the same overall "feel" to Kalyn's Kitchen, as well as keeping most things located in the same spot so it won't be hard for readers to find what they're looking for. A few items from the sidebars have been moved to tabs, but most things will be where they were before, just looking like they had a slight make-over. In addition, there will be some shiny new social media buttons, subscribe buttons, and category tabs that I hope you'll like.

Excuse our dust while we make the switch
Hopefully everything will go smoothly, but I'm guessing that some of my oldest posts might need to be re-formatted for larger main column. If you see a post that looks odd, let me know in the comments and I'll fix it. Thanks for reading, and if things do go wrong and need to be tweaked, thanks in advance for your patience!

Posts may include links to my affiliate account at Amazon.com, and this blog earns a few cents on the dollar if readers purchase the items I recommend, so thanks for supporting my blog when you shop at Amazon!

Hi Kalyn, looking forward to seeing the changes. Have been reading your blog for quite some time. The recipes I chose to make have all been really good - from soup to sweet potato fries to chicken recipes. Love the "how to" pictures you post to show the steps to make the recipe.

I just read your post while it was in the old format and clicked refresh and here's the new one. It looks great! And I'm sure you'll enjoy all the bells and whistles that new blogger offers. Congratulations to you and your creative team for a job well done!

Hi everybody! I'm glad you like the redesign. If you run into any bugs or problems with the new design, leave a comment here or contact Kalyn and I'll look into it. - Jennette from http://www.makemyblogpretty.com/

I totally understand how you feel about getting a new look. I had to upgrade from my older blogger template to one of the new ones, and since I had made changes to the old template code, I didn't how that would affect the switchover. Anyhow, everything went great. And it looks like yours did too! I like the updated look!

Hi, I tried to send you an email but it bounced back. Found your blog a few weeks ago and really enjoy it and your recipes! I gave it a mention in my blog since I'll be making one of your recipes tomorrow! Mmmmm!

Love the new design--but I loved the old one too. Your site is one of my very favorites and I use so many of your recipes which my friends and family really like--I've even been accused of being a Kalyn "evangelist" since I tell everyone to check out your site! :)Keep it up--being a South Beach-er, I treasure your site.

Thanks for joining the conversation! I love hearing from readers and even though I can't always reply to every comment, I will always answer specific questions on a recipe as soon as possible. Sometimes I'm answering by iPhone, so my replies may be short!

Comments don't appear on the blog until they're approved by me, so no need to try again if you don't see it when you post the comment! Please make your signature a link to your site if you're a blogger, but other links posted within the body of the comment will never be published.

Food Blogger Love!

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